88
Under the clichéd spell of rock-and-roll promiscuity and pills popped, Seigner shows astonishing range as the detached superstar who still fixates on her ex-boyfriend and has mood swings like a manic-depressive on fast-forward.
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What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
50
Los Angeles Times by Carina Chocano
As a take on celebrity as religious mass derangement, Backstage is nominally interesting. As a study of two characters, it's not very convincing.
60
With its booming soundtrack of songs -- written by Laurent Marimbert and sung by Seigner herself -- and good chemistry between Le Besco and Seigner, pic at times has an operatic emotional intensity that will turn off some viewers but provide a guilty pleasure for others.
60
An enjoyably overwrought meditation on the consequences of celebrity and the vicissitudes of fandom, Backstage stars Le Besco as the schoolgirl acolyte of Emmanuelle Seigner's pop diva, a singer-songwriter and high priestess of cheese.
75
New York Daily News by Jack Mathews
Director Emmanuelle Bercot's film offers a fascinating account of how a vulnerable star might mistake fan worship for something real.
88
The line separating "fan" from "fanatic" has never seemed as thin or as permeable as it does in this harrowing, and at times surprisingly humorous, case study from actress-turned-director Emmanuelle Bercot.
75
There's a pleasing tension in the air as their relationship comes to seem like something of a contest: With two women this needy, who will out-crazy the other?
50
Chicago Tribune by Michael Wilmington
The results aren't gothic and bloody, as they were in the Lauren Bacall film "The Fan," or elegant and ironic as in the Bette Davis classic "All About Eve"--though the plot suggests a bit of both.
42
Bercot moves the characters up and down like lines on a chart, never granting full access to what any of them are thinking. And access is what Backstage promised.
50
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
As long as it focuses on its feverishly needy central characters, neither of whom you would ever want to have as a friend, it remains true to itself.